[mythtv-users] 2021: Good cheap frontends for sports?
John Pilkington
johnpilk222 at gmail.com
Fri Jan 29 10:44:47 UTC 2021
On 29/01/2021 09:21, Paul Gardiner wrote:
> On 28/01/2021 02:26, Tom Harris wrote:
>> On Wed, Jan 27, 2021 at 9:38 AM Josh Rosenberg <mythtv at desh.info
>> <mailto:mythtv at desh.info>> wrote:
>>
>> Hey, all. My Zotac ZBOX-ID84 that I bought used 4 years ago might be
>> biting the dust, so it's time for a new frontend again. Since I
>> watch a fair bit of sports, I don't think Raspberry Pi or the
>> Android-based frontends give quite the oomph I need for 720p/1080i
>> sports, let alone higher quality. (See my previous thread at
>> https://lists.archive.carbon60.com/mythtv/users/626703
>> <https://lists.archive.carbon60.com/mythtv/users/626703> .)
>>
>> My instinct is to buy another ZBox and use VDPAU again, but I
>> haven't kept up on the latest developments with VAAPI or NVDEC. From
>> a quick search, it seems like buying hardware with a plan to use
>> VDPAU might not be the best option in 2021. Does anyone have any
>> specific suggestions for something that's Zbox sized or smaller and
>> would make a good frontend for a sports fan in this day and age?
>>
>>
>> I also had a Zotac Ion frontend that I used for years with VDPAU. It
>> was very good, but crapped out on me. I tried a few alternatives,
>> including the Pi 3, which was pretty good but had noticeable judder on
>> sports panning views.
>>
>> I ended up with the Nvidia Shield Pro -- the version that was updated
>> last year, and I find it to be excellent. Using the Mythfrontend app,
>> it's very snappy and has excellent video playback. My perception is
>> that it's as good as the Zotac, but without comparing side by side
>> it's hard to say 100%. Much of my viewing is HD sports, and I have no
>> problems with the Shield. Also, the Shield gives you access to all
>> the streaming apps (Netflix, Prime Video, HBO, etc.) which makes it
>> the ultimate frontend in my opinion.
>
> I'm interested in the Shield, not so much for mythfrontend (I have that
> covered), but for Amazon Prime, Netflix and iPlayer. I have a fairly new
> Fire Stick 4K, but it's terrible for frame rate matching. It's
> shockingly bad. I have to make the "Match original frame rate" setting
> every time I turn it on, and also if I power cycle just my AVReceiver.
> Worse, the Netflix and iPlayer apps don't respond to the setting, so I
> have to use the special engineer's menu to find the right rate before
> entering the app. It's probably not affecting most people because modern
> TVs have all sorts of horrible smoothing algorithms that can hide this,
> although at a price of making some video motion look artificial. I'm
> wondering how the Shield fares for frame rate matching.
>
My Firestick 4K appears to retain its 'match frame rate' setting, and
both leanfront and mythfrontend announce that they are using 50 fps when
playing material from my DVB-T/T2 channels. I haven't used streaming
services much.
The clip that you uploaded recently was mp4 1440x1088 with a video data
rate of 9998 kb/s, significantly higher than my old 1920x1080
recordings of similar material. leanfront on the firestick wasn't as
clean as UPnP, but not distressingly so.
Quite a lot of my recent recordings have been from the SkyArts channel,
544x576 progressive mpeg2video. Some have rapid action scenes, but they
still give pleasing playback at a video data rate around an eighth of
that in your clip...
Now back to framerate matching and the really hawk-eyed watching... :-)
John P
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